Nepal Journalists Detained as Police Enter Kathmandu Newsrooms

Police in Kathmandu detained journalists inside their newsrooms on Friday, in a series of visits that press groups say put newsroom safety and the protection of sources at risk.

Bishwamani Subedi of Nepal Press was arrested at his newsroom in New Baneshwor, according to Media Action Nepal. Three people in plain clothes entered while Subedi, who covers security and crime, was working, and said they were from the Crime Investigation Division acting on an order from the Inspector General of Police. Shobhraj Baral of Motivate News was also taken away for questioning, and Nepali outlets reported that Dhiraj Basnet of DNA Khabar was detained as well.

Officers also went to the office of the Naya Patrika daily looking for journalist Navaraj Mainali, without a clear explanation, and to Diyo Post looking for its editor, Sudip Bishwakarma. Diyo Post editor Rita Budhathoki said the outlet received calls from unidentified numbers asking where its office was, along with threats aimed at Bishwakarma.

Media Action Nepal chair Umesh Pokharel said the arrests and the attempts to locate reporters, with no clear legal grounds given, risk creating fear inside newsrooms. Press Council Nepal, the body that handles complaints about published content, objected to the police action, and the Federation of Nepali Journalists condemned the visits and prepared protests.

The detained journalists were released later on Friday after Prime Minister Balendra Shah's office intervened, according to reporting by Unified Nepal, which said the prime minister's secretariat denied knowing about the operation in advance. The ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party demanded an explanation from its own government, and the Home Ministry said it would look into what happened.

Media Action Nepal said the incidents raise serious concern about press freedom, the safety of journalists, the protection of sources and the freedom to report on matters of public interest, and it urged Nepal Police and the authorities to disclose the legal grounds for the arrests at once. The group said officers had also pursued other reporters, which it described as intimidation. Subedi was taken from the Nepal Press newsroom and was later released from the Cyber Bureau, according to Unified Nepal's account of the day.

The Press Council's objection rested on a clear line in Nepali practice: complaints about published content go through the council's legal mechanism, not through a police station. That is why the newsroom visits drew such a sharp response. The officers entered working newsrooms during the working day, in plain clothes, and in at least two cases left without saying clearly why they had come. What legal basis the police claim for the operation had still not been made public by Friday evening, and the Home Ministry's promise to look into the matter leaves the central question open: who sent the police into the newsrooms, and on what grounds.